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Nick's Blog Monday, March 31, 2008 We made some new friends yesterday. Fulltimers Sid and Rain Dudley are staying at an RV park in nearby Cottonwood and invited us to lunch. Sid is a regular blog reader and we have exchanged e-mails for quite some time now. We had a nice meal at a Mexican restaurant in Cottonwood called La Carreta and spent a couple of hours chatting and exchanging stories from the road. It was nice to have the chance to meet in person and get to know this nice couple. Like us, they are
starting their ninth year on the road, and they are also working RVers.
Sid works fueling helicopters on wildfire fighting crews, and they spend
their summers in fire danger hotspots all around the west. They lived in
A reader who is getting ready to start fulltiming this summer sent an e-mail the other day asking how I felt about our Verizon air card now that we have had it a while, how it compares to the HughesNet internet dish we used previously, and if we have any regrets from making the switch. We used the
Hughes tripod satellite system, which we actually had affixed to a
custom mount on our roof, for about five years. We have an escape hatch
in our roof over our bed, so it was a fairly simple matter to go up and
aim it, and Miss Terry got to the point where she could deploy the dish
and have us online in five to ten minutes. Overall, it worked very well
in most areas except the upper edge of the Olympic Peninsula, northern
However, we are on the move a lot and run a business on the road. There are many, many nights when we pull into a place to sleep and are gone the first thing next morning. It was too much hassle to set up and take down the dish in those instances, so there were times we were offline for several days at a time. We also had to leave places sometimes when the weather was bad, and had to be up on the roof in the rain and/or wind messing with the dish. There was always the danger of falling off the roof of the bus, and we’ve reached that age where we break quickly and heal slowly. Last September we decided to give the Verizon USB 720 air card a try, and we never used the satellite system again. The space the dish took up on our rooftop now holds two additional solar panels. We have a Wilson Trucker antenna and amp, and we still have not mounted the antenna outside, it just sits on the corner of my desk near the window. In all, we have
traveled well over 5,000 miles with the air card since then, and been
from northern Here at the Thousand Trails campground in the Verde Valley, we have the slower 1X service instead of the much faster high speed EVDO, but we’re still online with speeds of about 138 kb downloads. Compared to the old telephone line access in our hometown, this is a major improvement. With the air card, we have seen speeds as high as 2566 kb in some of the EVDO areas we have visited, including while boondocking in Quartzsite. Overall, our average speed has been right around 1000 kb. By comparison, the highest speed we ever got with our HughesNet system was 1614 kb, and the average was about 763 kb.
We find that there are many, many more nights when we pull into a truck stop or rest area for the night and have internet access than we did before, because we would not have set the dish up in that situation. For us, it was the right choice. Hopefully the strong winds we had over the weekend have finally blown themselves out. We still have a couple of places we want to visit while here, and we’re getting short on time, but it was just too darned windy to do much of anything the last couple of days. Thought For The Day – Don’t
waste fresh tears over old grief. Register Now For Our New Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally Sunday, March 30, 2008 Northern Arizona
is a windy place this time of year, and it sure has been blowing
here in the Weather is always a factor in the RV lifestyle. We try to avoid overly cold or hot weather, but wind, rain, thunderstorms, and even tornadoes sometimes cannot be avoided. We’ve been in all of them in our nine years on the road. Bad weather is never a pleasant experience, but by exercising a little common sense, we can lessen the danger. If we’re in a campground and bad weather is predicted, we sit tight and wait for the storms to pass. I’m always amazed to see our neighbors pulling out in weather where any sensible RVer will be looking for a place to get off the highway. There is no place I have to be that makes it worth risking our lives to get there. I have had RVers tell me that they would prefer to hit the road and outrun an approaching tornado, but I think that is foolish. If we are in a campground, I learn where the designated storm shelter is. Out on the highway, there may be no place to seek shelter if a funnel cloud comes in our direction. If we are on the road and the weather turns foul, we look for the closest rest area, campground, or business parking lot large enough to get into until things clear up. It may not be as safe as a storm shelter, but it beats the heck out of being out there on the highway in severe weather. Always be alert
when traveling in marginal weather conditions. Years ago we were rolling
up Interstate 25 near The language on a
CB radio can get pretty disgusting at times, but it is still an
invaluable tool for an RVer. Our CB has a weather channel setting, and
we monitor it closely when the sky begins to look dark. Our Sirius
satellite radio also provides us with local weather for most major
metropolitan areas, as well as traffic reports. A dedicated weather
radio with an alert tone should also be standard equipment for every RV.
You can get one for as little as $20, which is pretty cheap insurance. Thought For The Day – Mankind
has a perfect record in aviation; we’ve never left one up there! Register Now For Our New Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally Saturday, March 29, 2008 Yesterday we took
the bus back to HEFR, the garage that was going to replace the wheel
studs that the tire shop in Randy, the mechanic who worked on our bus, manager John Bouchard, and owner Dave Wittmayer are all great guys, and they went out of their way to take care of us. We were so comfortable with HEFR that while we were in the shop we had them do some routine maintenance on the bus, including an oil and filter change, changing out our fuel filters, and a lube job. They also did a complete safety inspection, and pronounced the bus in good condition and road worthy. We left the shop lighter in the pocketbook, but comfortable in knowing that our coach is ready for another season of fulltime RVing. I like finding a
shop I can trust, and HEFR is one I can highly recommend. Their telephone
number is (928) 567-9140 and their website is www.hefrshop.com.
If you have anything from a car to a motorhome or heavy duty truck, they
are the place to go to for honest, reliable service and repairs in the Two blog readers
have written to ask me how I know that the studs were stripped by the
original tire shop. I was sure to ask the mobile repair tech the tire
shop sent out, as well as the mechanic, shop manager, and owner at HEFR,
and they are all in agreement that the problem was caused by the tire
changer in I am a bit concerned in that when I first called Monday to complain, the tire shop’s manager sent a service truck out, but was waffling a bit on the cost of the repairs. Since then I have called him three times and he has been “unavailable” and has not returned my calls. So I don’t know if he will step up to the plate and reimburse us for the repairs or not, but I don’t intend to just roll over and play dead. I’m happy to promote and support a business that takes care of its customers, and I can accept that mistakes happen. But if someone tries to burn me, we have a problem. Some friends here
at the Thousand Trails campground told us about an excellent barbecue
place in Thought For The Day – Someone
who thinks logically provides a nice contrast to the real world. Register Now For Our New Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally Friday, March 28, 2008
Perched on the side of Cleopatra Hill and built on top of rich ore deposits, from the late 1800s through the mid-1920s Jerome was a busy mining town with population of 15,000. Eventually the mines played out and all but a very few hardy souls moved on. By the 1950s, less than 100 residents remained. These days Jerome has been reborn as an artist colony, with a population of about 500, and is once again a busy little town. Art galleries and studios, along with gift shops and boutiques, now occupy the buildings that once housed saloons and brothels. In fact, the place is was so filled with tourists during our midweek visit that we could not find a place to park anywhere in town! After driving the
narrow streets and looking in vain, we finally had to drive a couple of
miles further up the mountainside just While we were in
Jerome we had a bad experience at the When we got back
to the bus, I called the State Parks office in This was not our
first problem at an
I appreciated Ms.
Hawk’s comments, but maybe if the parks were more user-friendly they
could offset some of that budget crunch. How many Gypsy
Journal readers might have visited But then I remind myself, having lived in Arizona for much of my adult life, that the powers that be and their bureaucratic underlings never have gone out of their way to accommodate the citizens and taxpayers. Apparently visitors fall into that category too. Thought For The Day – Whoever
said the pen is mightier then the sword obviously never encountered
automatic weapons. Register Now For Our New Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally Thursday, March 27, 2008 We have a new toy
that is also an important safety tool! Yesterday Mike and Pat McFall
drove over from their lot at the Escapees North Ranch RV park near
Congress,
One additional item that Mike brought for our system is a repeater antenna which mounts in our bedroom. This is because a steel bus like ours can sometimes present problems in transmitting the signals from the tire sensors through the body of the bus. Mike says that this is not an issue and that the repeater will not be needed by most folks with traditional RVs. I appreciate him foreseeing any problems ahead of time for us to insure a quick and successful installation. And the installation was quick indeed. Basically
all it took was mounting the repeater and plugging it in, mounting the
monitor and plugging it into a cigarette lighter, and then screwing the
sensors on the bus and van tires. The entire process took less than an
hour. Trust me folks, if I can do it, anyone can!
As many blog and Gypsy Journal readers know, Terry and I have been geocaching for several years now. Geocaching is the perfect RV hobby. Basically, people hide small “caches” of trinkets someplace, post the GPS coordinates on the geocaching website at www.geocaching.com, and other people go out and find them. The goal for us is not to get some little trinket we find in the cache, but rather the hunt itself. I’m much too lazy to go for a walk, but tell me there’s a plastic box full of McDonalds toys out there somewhere and I’ll walk fifteen miles to find it! The short definition of geocaching is that we use 10 billion dollar government satellites to find Tupperware hidden in the woods. For a more in depth description, check out the link to a geocaching article I wrote a while back. In addition to regular caches, we also enjoy “virtual” caches, which take us to some interesting location. It may be a statue, a unique looking building, or a historical site. An outgrowth of the geocaching.com website is a new one dedicated to just these types of virtual caches, at www.waymarking.com. Longtime Gypsy Journal reader and veteran geocacher Tom Marlatt recently tipped me off to yet another website just for geocaching RVers and truck drivers, www.geotruckers.com. The site has links to the original geocaching.com website, but lists only caches that are accessible to drivers of big rigs. How cool is that? Now you can pull off the road and walk right to a cache or two, exercising your body and your gray cells at the same time! Thought For The Day – Forbidden fruits create many jams. Register Now For Our New Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally Wednesday, March 26, 2008 The time has come to end my friendship with Terry Simpson. It’s a sad time, because Terry is a good ol’ boy, and has been a great buddy to me. But we both knew this day was coming. When I called Terry to tell him as much, he agreed that the handwriting had been on the wall for a long time. I’ll miss Terry’s good company, and especially all of the work he and his beautiful wife Connie have put into our rallies. But sometimes these things just happen.
After yesterday,
even if I did want to stoop down to Terry’s level, it’s out of the Last
week I wrote that Life on Wheels founder Gaylord Maxwell had asked us to
teach at the conference in Lewiston, If we do go to Thought For The Day – The
difference between intelligence and stupidity is that there are limits
to intelligence. Register Now For Our New Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally Tuesday, March 25, 2008 As I wrote yesterday, for our 11 nights here at the Verde Valley Thousand Trails, we were told that we had to check out and back in every other day or so. When we arrived Sunday, they gave us a sheet of paper to put in the window to show we are supposed to check out Monday, and I was told that each time I check back in I'd get a new one with the updated info. We were told we did not have to actually leave the site, just go to the ranger station every day for the paperwork. A little after 8 a.m. yesterday I had some clown knocking on my door wanting to know when I was leaving because he wanted my site! After a bit of a wait and having to fight with the computer system, the ranger was at least able to give me a window sticker with our final check out date on it, but said we would still have to play the game every other day. I made a post about that on the Thousand Trails Yahoo group yesterday morning, and soon afterward, I got an e-mail from Scott Woolley, Verde Valley TTN Operations Manager, apologizing for our inconvenience after he apparently read my post. Scott changed our reservations to one single reservation, so we don't have to go up to the ranger station and go through the hassle every day or two, and even had someone bring our new parking passes and paperwork to our site! Now, that is customer service! Thanks Scott! Congratulations to our dear friend Orv Hazelton,
who has won the President's
Volunteer Service Award from President Bush for his volunteer work with
the Escapees CARE program and the
Hospice of the Bluegrass
program. I cannot think of anyone who deserves this recognition more. I
can say without reservation that Orv is one of the most caring and
giving people I have ever known. Every year he leaves his home in Lexington, In yesterday’s blog, I wrote about the problem we
had with the installation of our new front tires. I called GCR Tires in The service truck could not change out the studs, so we had to pack the bus back up, unhook from our campsite and drive about three miles to Hansen Enterprises Fleet Repair (HEFR) www.hefrshop.com to see if they could handle it. We were amazed at how clean and neat HEFR’s shop was! These folks really take pride in their work and their workplace. They did not have the studs needed and could not
locate any on short notice, so now we have to wait for them to call when
they find them, pack up the bus all over again, and drive back to their
shop. What a hassle! Tom, the manager of GCR Tire in Thought For The Day – You
can tell how big a person is by what it takes to discourage him. Register Now For Our New Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally Monday, March 24, 2008 I am not a happy camper! As I reported in yesterday’s blog, Saturday
morning we went to GCR Tire in Making the climb up I-17, we had a couple of steep places where we were down to about 15 miles per hour for short distances, but I kept the bus geared down, and the temperature gauge stayed in the upper range of my comfort level. North of Cordes Junction, we heard a loud pop and immediately pulled over, fearing another blowout, like we experienced a few months ago. All of the tires looked good, but I used my infrared thermometer to check all of the tires on the bus and the toad, just to be sure, and all was fine. I decided that maybe what we heard was a passing car backfiring. When we arrived at the campground, Terry discovered that one of the lug nuts on the left front tire was almost off. It was not that way when I did my walk-around after hearing the noise. Later we discovered another lug nut loose and the stud mount stripped on the passenger side tag wheel. I plan to call GCR today and let them know, and I am going to ask them to pay to either have a service truck come out, or for me to take it to a shop to have all of the nuts checked and tightened. Negligence like this is dangerous! Doesn't anybody know how to do a simple job any more? Shops don't want customers in the work area, so we can't watch to be sure a job is done right. So instead, we trust them to do their job, and look what happens. The Thousand Trails campground is packed, and I think we got one of the last full hookup sites available. When I made the reservation, their computer system was all messed up, and the girl at the Thousand Trails office had to make five different reservations for the eleven days we’ll be here. We don’t have to leave our RV site, but we do have to go to the ranger station and check out and then check back in every other day. It’s a goofy and inconvenient way to do things, but why should that surprise anybody? As we were walking back to where we had parked the bus after finding our site, Rick and Joyce Lang from RV Safety and Education Foundation www.rvsafety.org pulled up and we hitched a ride with them back to our bus. We had just spent the week with them at Life on Wheels, where they were giving seminars and weighing RVs. After we got the bus parked and utilities hooked up, I couldn’t get the satellite TV dish tuned in. After one frustrating attempt after another, I gave up and decided to mess with it later, and went back inside the bus. Soon after, subscribers John and Jean Watson showed up at our door. John is one of those high tech kind of guys who finds challenges like aiming a satellite dish mere child’s play. He went back to their motorhome and returned with a high tech gadget of some kind that looked like it should be monitoring brain waves or something. He hooked it up, made an adjustment here and there, tested and tweaked, and lo and behold, we had a signal! Thanks John, I’ll think of you every time I pick up the remote control. Terry and I are both tired and burned out, and are looking forward to some quiet time here in the Verde Valley. It’s long past due. Thought For The Day – Why
does a round pizza come in a square box? Register Now For Our New Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally Sunday, March 23, 2008 Even though we
would have liked to have slept in yesterday morning after our week of
teaching at Life on Wheels, we were up early because we had an
appointment with GCR Tires in Well, we started to pull out. But I cut a turn too sharp trying to get around one of the concrete corner markers in the parking lot and managed to scrape a tree branch most of the length of the passenger side of the bus. Ouch! I think with some polish and a lot of elbow grease we can fix it, but I was really kicking my butt over my carelessness. I’m sure Miss Terry wanted to do some butt kicking too, but she was very gracious about the whole affair. As I tell my Life on Wheels students, even us veterans goof up on a pretty regular basis. The guys at GCR tire did a great job, installing two new Firestone tires on the front of the bus, moving the previous front tires to our tag axle, and mounting the best of the old tag axle tires on the rim which held our worn out spare tire. With new tires installed and a large chunk of money left behind, we got on Interstate 10 and had an easy run to the Flying J in Eloy, where we topped off our tank, and verified that this Flying J, as I have heard about others around the country, no longer honors the 1¢ per gallon discount for their RV Club card. As I’ve said before, some of the Flying J locations around the country are so much hassle that the dollar or so I save with the discount really isn’t worth the trouble. But I still went there because at least they did something to support their RVing customers. Now, with no discount, I’ll just pull into whatever place has the best prices and/or the easiest access. Once we left the Flying J, we splurged and did something we have talked about for years now. Our 1976 MCI bus conversion had decades of road film and oxidation on the stainless steel of the bay doors and front and rear panels. I’ve tried cutting through it with a buffer a time or two with limited success, but I really wanted that stainless to shine like the mirror finishes I’ve seen on some other bus conversions. Right across Interstate 10 from the Flying J, there are a couple of places that polish the stainless steel on semi trucks, and we stopped at M&M Truck Polishing to ask how much they would charge us to polish our 40 foot bus. The fellow started at $500, but it was a slow day and I guess my haggling skills are at least halfway decent, because he agreed to $350.
We had unhooked
the van while they were polishing the bus, and since we were only going
a few miles to the Pinal County Fairgrounds for the night, Miss Terry
just followed me there. Upon arrival we dumped our holding tank, parked
and hooked up water and electric, then walked over to Mac McCoy’s
coach and demanded he take us out to dinner. Mac was teaching in With our stomachs full, the long week soon caught up with all three of us, and the conversation lagged. We returned to the fairgrounds and went our separate ways, more than ready to get some much deserved rest. Thought For The Day – Some marriages are made in heaven, but they all have to be maintained on earth. Register
Now For Our New Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally Saturday, March 22, 2008 Yesterday the
Life on Wheels conference in My feet and back may be sore from spending so much time on my feet teaching, but as I read over the evaluation forms that the students submit after their classes, and see comments like “I’m coming away from Nick’s class knowing that I can make my dreams come true!” or “Your class has inspired me to quit dreaming about fulltiming someday and start doing it now” or “Nick and Terry have taught me so much, their class alone made it worth the trip to Life on Wheels” make me forget those petty aches and pains. Yesterday afternoon, Greg Holder from AM Solar and RV tech Ron Walter came over and did some upgrading on our solar power system. They replaced our HPV-22 solar charge controller with a newer, more powerful HPV-22B model on one of our solar panel banks, and then they added AM Solar’s newest and best HPV-30D solar charge controller on our second bank of panels.
At noon yesterday the solar panels were putting over 28 amps into our batteries, which is pretty impressive when we consider that we have spent weeks at a time plugged into15 or 20 amp household circuits when visiting friends and family. With the added benefits of the new charge controllers, I’ll be interested to see what we get. We had not eaten all day, and it was after 6 p.m. when all of the work was finished, so Terry and I, along with fellow instructors Mac McCoy from Fire and Life Safety www.macthefireguy.com and Orv Hazelton, headed for the nearest restaurant to get some food into our systems. Back at the bus, we wandered around the parking lot visiting with the few students and staff who had stayed over, and then called it a day and came inside. Today we have an
appointment to get two new front tires on the bus, and we’ll move the
existing front tires to our tag axle. Then we plan to go up to Casa
Grande for the night, and Sunday we’ll continue on to the Verde Valley
Thousand Trails preserve, which is located near Thought For The Day – Problems
become opportunities when the right people come together. Register Now For Our New Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally Friday, March 21, 2008 Wow, it’s Friday already! Where did the week go? I guess time really does fly when you’re having fun. Today is the last day of the Tucson Life on Wheels conference and it has been a lot of work but also very rewarding, as always. We have enjoyed meeting the students, teaching our classes, and having the opportunity to visit informally after classes with our fellow instructors and the students. While I’ll be sorry to see the conference end, my feet, back, and voice pay a penalty for being on stage and talking for over six hours a day. Here is a solar power update. I wrote in Wednesday’s blog that this would be our first experience dry camping since we added the two new solar panels to our bus, bringing our total up to five panels with a combined rating of 540 watts. As I wrote in Wednesday’s blog, we would be inside teaching all day, and not using the television, doing much work on our computers, or using our laser printer. I was pretty sure that the solar arrangement would supply sufficient power to enable our battery bank to supply all of our needs during the week. That meant keeping our house style refrigerator running 24/7, and being able to use lights in the evening, and spending a couple of hours at the computer answering e-mail and writing and posting the blog every evening before bedtime. My goal was to see if we could get by without running our generator all week. We unplugged from our hookup at Tra-Tel RV Park Monday afternoon and have been living on solar ever since. Our battery bank has held up fine under the test. By morning our gauges show that the battery voltage has dropped down to where I normally would run the generator. But the sun is coming up, and we instead charge with solar all day long. In the time we have been here, we have not needed to fire up the generator. However, we have not been living our normal lifestyle this week. We have not used the television all week, Terry has not made coffee, and our computer time has been less than usual. As I wrote previously, we are power pigs and we live the same way while dry camping as we do plugged in at a campground. Normally I get up in the morning and turn on my computer and internet connection, and flip on the television for the morning news. Miss Terry makes coffee. I spend many hours a day and through the evening at the keyboard. We watch television in the evening. I print things on the laser printer. With our previous arrangement of three 100 watt AM Solar panels, we were running the generator on average of 90 minutes a day to sustain that lifestyle. Obviously, even with the addition of the two extra panels, if we were practicing our normal routine, we would still need to run the generator. How much? I don’t know. Maybe an hour a day? So while I have confirmed that we can keep our coach’s systems and our refrigerator running on just solar power for days on end while placing some draw on the battery bank for lights and computer use, for our needs solar is still only a supplement to a generator. And even at today’s high fuel prices, I could buy enough fuel to run our generator many years for what our solar system cost. Do I like having a solar system? You bet! It’s neat to get power from the sun, and the less fuel I burn in my generator, the better it is for the environment and our budget. But could we live the lifestyle we are comfortable with if we only had solar power? Maybe some folks could, but not us. Thought For The Day – The
real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the right
time, but also to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment. Register Now For Our New Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally Thursday, March 20, 2008 Yesterday was a busy day for us here at Life on
Wheels in Once we were finished teaching for the day, we went to dinner at Red Lobster with Tom Owens, Diane Rojewski, and Alice Kyle from Final Exit Plan www.finalexitplan.com. If you ever thought that people who work in the funeral industry are somber individuals, you haven’t socialized with these three! When they are in their working mode, they are totally professional and very dedicated to what they do, but off the clock, they are a lot of fun to be with. Tom just bought a Kingsley Coach truck conversion, and has not even picked it up yet, but I’m jealous and can’t wait to see it! Tom says if I’m a very, very good boy, he might even let me sit behind the wheel and pretend I’m driving the big rig. Terry and I are currently faced with a tough
decision. We decided last summer that we were not going to go to Driving to Idaho is out of the question, in terms of both time and expense. However, neither of us enjoys flying. We’re not afraid of flying, we just don’t like the hassles of getting to the airport, dealing with security, lost luggage, and then arriving and having to use rental cars and stay in hotels. And we hate being away from our home on wheels for over a week. Yet, the program needs us. One minute we think we should change our plans and go, and the next we remind ourselves that we did not get into this lifestyle just to run from one teaching or rally gig to the next. And Dave’s sudden death reminds us that none of us know when we’ll be next. How many summers do we put our own plans and things we want to do on hold? What to do, what to do…. Thought For The Day – Of
all things you wear, your expression is the most important. Register Now For Our New Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally Wednesday, March 19, 2008 Did I ever mention that I love the solar setup on our bus? With our three 100 watt AM Solar panels www.amsolar.com, and the addition of the two 120 watt panels we added while we were in Quartzsite in January, yesterday we were putting over 25 amps into our batteries while dry camping here at Pima Community College in Tucson. As I’ve said before, I’m a power pig, and I live the same way dry camping as I do while plugged into an RV park’s electrical system. We have a house style refrigerator, Terry makes coffee in the morning, I fire up my computer and internet connection first thing in the morning and I often work at the computer all day long. We watch television, I print things off on the laser printer, and do all of the things we do anywhere else. Before we had solar, we averaged a little over three hours a day running the generator to keep our bank of three 8D AGM batteries topped off. After we added the three AM Solar panels, our generator time dropped about 50%. We have not dry camped long enough after adding the new pair of panels to be able to give you a report on what that has done for us yet. But here at the college, while we are busy teaching for Life on Wheels www.rvlifeonwheels.com all day, I won’t leave the computer and printer on, and we are not watching television, so our power consumption is down. I’m pretty confident we will not have to fire up the generator at all while we’re here if we continue to have sunny days. During the instructors’ meeting yesterday, Life on Wheels founder Gaylord Maxwell asked me to say a few words about my friend and fellow instructor Dave Baleria, who passed away last month. I did my best to tell everybody about Dave’s passing and about the impact he had on my own life and on the Life on Wheels program, but I’m afraid I broke down a couple of times in the process. During the welcoming ceremony for the students, they had two empty chairs placed in the center front, where the instructors sit on stage, in memory of Dave and to symbolize the empty place in our hearts and in the Life on Wheels program without both Dave and his wife Sandy here. We spent most of the day visiting with the rest of the instructors, and meeting and welcoming the students. There are some familiar faces from past conferences, and a lot of newbies as well. We also have several here who were at our Gypsy Gathering rally last month in Casa Grande. Today is the first day of classes. Terry and I will be teaching ten different 90 minute classes, one every session, more classes than any other instructors with the Life on Wheels program. It is a lot of work, but I just love teaching and I get back so much more than I put into it. Thought For The Day – Others can stop you temporarily, but only you can do it permanentlyRegister Now For Our New Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally Tuesday, March 18, 2008 Yesterday was supposed to be a cake walk for us. We
planned to get up early enough to have plenty of time to get the bus
moved over to the We had everything unhooked and were ready to pull
out by 10 a.m., but the bus would not start. It turned over, but would
not fire. This happens once in a while when it gets cold and we have
been sitting for a long time. We had been at Tra-Tel for a month, and
the night before, the temperature was in the mid-30s. Usually when this
happens, a quick shot of starting fluid sprayed into the breather spout
is all it takes to get the old Our MCI bus conversion has a 24 volt starting system consisting of two twelve volt batteries connected in series. In the past I have hooked a twelve volt battery charger to each of our starting batteries. This time around, a couple of fellows from the campground came over to “help,” and explained to me why that would not work. I assured them it would, that I’ve done it before, and all the bus nuts I’ve talked to do it the same way. I went inside to check on something, and one of my “helpers” decided to switch things around, and the next thing I heard was “Wow, your charger is fried!” I went back outside, and sure enough, smoke was coming out of the charger. I sent my volunteers away, and Terry and I made a quick run to WalMart for new battery chargers. The last time I bought a battery charger, it was about $30. But the best price on anything of any quality was $75, each. I bit the bullet and bought a pair of chargers. Back at the bus, I started charging the batteries, and once they were up to full power, tried to start the bus again. Still nothing. I made a couple of phone calls to Terry Simpson and Howard Best, both of whom have MCI bus conversions, to see if either had any suggestions. We all seemed to be in agreement that the diesel engine had lost prime, and I was just about ready to give up and call a mechanic, but decided to give it one last shot of starting fluid and see what happened. Lo and behold, it worked! The bus fired up and ran smoothly. By then it was 3 p.m., and both Miss Terry and I were tired, sore and greasy from messing around in the engine compartment. We wiped a layer or two of grease off our hands and arms, and she jumped in the van and followed me the four miles or so over to the campus. I parked the bus in the instructor parking area, doing a great job of parallel parking in between another coach in front and a tree behind me, if I do say so myself. Of course, I had Miss Terry guiding me in, which made the job easy. Once we were parked, we walked over to say hello to
our friend Donna Yeaw, a/k/a Froggi, as she is known on her internet
posts. We met Donna at Life on Wheels in Shortly after we got inside, our pal Orv Hazelton
called. Orv had arrived at Tra-Tel soon after we left, and after getting
parked and hooked up, he came by to pick us up and take us to dinner at
Miss Terry’s favorite Mexican restaurant in Orv drove us back to the bus, and we spent the next couple of hours checking e-mail, and watching the clock, asking ourselves if it was bedtime yet. I try to post the blog at midnight local time every night so it is online when our readers on the east coast begin their day. Since I usually work pretty late and seldom get to bed before 1:30 a.m., and sleep in accordingly, it would be late in the morning on the east coast if I waited until I woke up to post it. But there are times when I really just want to hit the sheets early and publish it whenever I get up the next morning. Thought For The Day – Regrets
about yesterday and fear of tomorrow rob us of the spirit of the moment. Register Now For Our New Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally Monday, March 17, 2008 I spent most of yesterday working on a book project, while Miss Terry did laundry and some other last minute chores before we get busy with Life on Wheels. In mid-afternoon, Howard and Nora Glover, whom we had met in Quartzsite and again at our Gypsy Gathering rally in Casa Grande last month, pulled into the site next to us at Tra-Tel RV Park. They are a nice couple and we have enjoyed getting to know them.
We were better off than the folks in northern Well, we all knew it was coming. Even when we are
not traveling, out of habit, I check fuel prices nationwide on the
Flying J website at http://flyingj.com/fuel/gasoline_CF.cfm
frequently. Yesterday I noted diesel prices at well over $4 a gallon in
several states. Pembroke, We offset fuel prices to a large extent by using
free campgrounds and other low cost overnight parking opportunities
whenever we can. But it is still going to take a big bite out of our
budget. Yes, I know that people in Europe, and even Today we will leave Tra-Tel and move the bus over
to the Thought For The Day – My mind works like lightning. One brilliant flash and it’s gone. Register Now For Our New Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally Sunday, March 16, 2008 We’ve spent a lot of time visiting with friends the last couple of days. Friday we had lunch with our longtime pal Sharon McKay and her special guy, Don Del Rosario. Sharon and Don are both fulltimers with lots of experience on the road, and it was nice to have some time with them away from the hustle and bustle of an RV rally. Yesterday we
spent some time with my attorney, Roberta Jensen, who lives here in Back at the bus,
Lee and Pat Kayhart stopped in for a visit. We first met Lee and Pat
when they were students at Life on Wheels here in But then I got to thinking, Lee’s a sly old dog and once we get there he may put me to work! That could be a very bad thing. Even I am afraid of how much damage I could do on a tractor or combine! Now, Lee may be smart enough not to let me near the heavy equipment, and that’s okay. But I have to figure he’s going to expect me to earn my keep one way or another, and I sure don’t plan on milking any cows. First of all, I don’t know those cows well enough to get that familiar with them, and like I said, Lee’s a sly old dog. He may point me toward the wrong critter and just sit back and grin while I try to milk the bull! While Lee and Pat were here, subscribers Doug and JoAnn Dubrouillet came by to pick up a couple of bundles of papers to pass out at their RV park west of town. So we had a house full, and we all enjoyed a nice visit. Doug has been wanting to join the Moose, so while they were here I filled out the paperwork to sponsor him. A couple of our
other RVing friends contacted me with tips that could help save a life.
My buddy Orv Hazelton is currently in Subscriber Jean
Watson also wrote to tell me that her husband fell ill while they were
at the Verde Valley Thousand Trails campground near Fortunately, her
husband’s illness was relatively minor, but it got me thinking about
what could happen if it had been worse. Then I realized that as much
time as we have spent at Elkhart Campground in Thought For The Day – Did
you ever notice that the Roman numerals for forty (40) are XL? Register Now For Our New Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally Saturday, March 15, 2008 I don’t know if he’s still around, but at one time there was
a fellow in Every week he published his list of SOBs, the people who had ticked him off. Some were public figures, such as the county sheriff and local judge, and their names were always listed, along with whatever sins he felt they had committed lately or were ongoing. But he did not limit himself to elected officials. For weeks the name of a local car dealer who sold him a lemon was high on the list. Other people listed included the publisher of a rival newspaper, the owner of a store he had an ongoing disagreement with, anyone who was delinquent in their advertising bill, and any waitress or service person who failed to measure up to his expectations. I always wondered what his libel insurance premiums cost him. Miss Terry probably won’t let me run my own SOB List, but if I did, there are some great candidates to report on today. The top name on the list would be Fed Ex, which should be called Fed Up. How do these idiots stay in business? I ordered an expensive
piece of newspaper layout software from Adobe a couple of weeks ago, and
was assured that Fed Ex would deliver it to me here at Tra-Tel RV Park
in It did not arrive on Wednesday, as promised, nor did it come
Thursday, so yesterday morning I went to the Fed Ex website and entered
the tracking number. The package made it all the way to Phoenix, “So you made a mistake and did not deliver it on time, you have the capability to get it to me before I leave here, but you expect me to pay you $25 for that?” I asked her. “Yes sir, or we can have it to you next week.” I told her that was not acceptable, but she didn’t really seem to care. Isn’t it nice to do business with a company with a global reputation? We’ll add Adobe Software to the SOB List too. After I gave up on Fed Up, I called Adobe to complain about their choice of shipping companies. But since the fellow I spoke to understood about as much English as your garden variety rock, that did me no good. Apparently his supervisor was out back feeding the goats or something, because I was on hold for about fifteen minutes and he never came on the line. Miss Terry may not let me have an SOB List, but if I did, you can bet she’d want Bank of America included! The bank has decided that we need to hear about all of their special offers to enrich our lives and make our banking experience more rewarding, so they have had a computer call us twice now at 5 a.m. to encourage us to do more business with the bank. I won’t say that Thousand Trails membership campgrounds should be on the SOB List that I don’t have, but whoever designed their reservation software sure does. In yesterday’s blog I reported on my difficulty in trying to make an online reservation. I called their customer service department yesterday, and got a very nice young lady, who told me that their reservations software is in a shambles, and that the geeks in charge of fixing it don’t seem to be able to get the job done. She was able to get us 11 days at the Thought For The Day – Don't worry about what people think, they don't do it very often. Register Now For Our New Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally Friday, March 14, 2008 We had a wonderful day yesterday. We drove east on
Interstate 10 to Texas Canyon, between Benson and Willcox, to visit the Amerind
This was the land of the Chiricahua Apache, who preyed upon the stagecoach, miners, and anyone else who ventured into the canyon. The great Apache war chief Cochise and as many as 1,000 of his followers ruled this land from their stronghold in the nearby Dragoon Mountains for over a decade. It was said that no man, woman or child who ventured within 100 miles of here was safe. Operating the stagecoach was a dangerous job. Their regular schedule made it easy to plan ambushes, and the Apaches killed 22 drivers in a sixteen month period. The Amerind Foundation (Amerind stands for American
Indian) began as the private collection of William Fulton, an amateur
archeologist and collector of Indian artifacts, and today has grown into
a world class museum. The museum displays an amazing collection of
Indian artifacts ranging from pottery and utensils, to blankets and
kachina dolls. While the emphasis is on the Native peoples of the
American Southwest and northern
Mother Nature has carved the rocks into amazing shapes, and several had natural windows, like this one Miss Terry posed in. We also found a large rock with several metates where Indian women ground corn and other grain over the centuries. You do have to be careful in this area. It is the
desert, and everything that lives here
As delightful as our day was, my evening was equally as frustrating. A week or so ago I made a reservation for March 22 to 29 through Resorts of Distinction for the Western Horizons resort in Casa Grande, Arizona, and then a six day reservation with Thousand Trails at the Verde Valley preserve. Both were confirmed, but today Resorts of Distinction called to tell me that there was a scheduling problem and we would have to change our Casa Grande reservations and either leave early or arrive later. We decided to just cancel it all together and just go right to the Thousand Trails after Life on Wheels. I checked their website and the new dates I wanted were available, but first I would have to cancel my existing reservation, which I did. But when I tried to make a new reservation, even though it showed the dates as available, when I tried to get a confirmation, I got a message saying it was unavailable. So we started yesterday morning with two confirmed reservations and ended the day with none! I’ll call Thousand Trails today and see what we can work out. We’re looking forward to getting up to Show Low and spending some time with my daughter and her family, but they had snow there Monday, so we’d like to put it off a week or two to give the weather time to improve. Thought For The Day – To
avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing. Register Now For Our New Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally Thursday, March 13, 2008 Even with
gasoline prices climbing higher on a daily basis and diesel fuel edging
ever closer to $4 a gallon, I have not seen any reduction in the number
of RVs running up and down the highway. We have been at Tra-Tel RV Park
here in We all have to buy fuel, but there are a few ways we can at least get the most out of that very expensive liquid we pump into our RV’s tanks. I wrote an article a while back titled Beating The Fuel Pump Bandits that shared some common sense tips to help us all avoid wasting fuel, and I think it’s well worth a read again, just to be sure we are doing all that we can to maximize our miles per gallon. Two of the easiest things we can all do to get the best mileage out of our vehicles are slowing down and maintaining our tires. Our MCI bus conversion gets an average of just over 6 miles per gallon in relatively flat terrain if I keep the speed between 55 and 60 miles per hour. But if I let my speed creep up to just 65, we quickly drop down to around 5 miles per hour. Study after study has shown that the fuel savings between 65 and 55 miles per hour for most vehicles averages around 20%. That adds up quickly! Properly inflated tires are another important factor in fuel mileage. It is a simple fact of physics that a circle rolls easier than a square. Under-inflated tires can really kill your mileage. They also give a better ride, carry more weight, and last longer. Purchase a quality air gauge at a truck stop and check your tire pressure before each trip. Better yet, take advantage of technology and invest in a tire monitoring system. We will be adding a PressurePro system to our bus and van before we begin our trip east in a few weeks. The system continually monitors your vehicles’ tires and alerts you to low tire pressures with both a visual and audible warning. The sensors transmit low-pressure readings immediately when they occur. When tire pressure is low, the monitor identifies the low tire position with a flashing light on that location and an audible alarm. We’re getting our system from fellow Escapees Mike and Pat McFall, who were vendors at our Gypsy Gathering rally in Casa Grande last month. Mike and Pat have an excellent reputation with the RVing public and we have a lot of confidence in them and the pressure pro system. Check out their website at http://pressureprosystem.com/default.aspx. Knowing where to
purchase fuel can really save you money. For example, we have learned by
experience that fuel prices on Interstate 75 drop anywhere from 5 to 20
cents per gallon when we leave Before every trip, we do some research to find out what locations along our route offer the best prices overall. We have a pretty comfortable range of around 700 miles in our bus, so we try to wait until we are in a state with lower fuel prices before we fill our tank. There are several websites that will help you check fuel prices before you hit the road. Some of my favorites are Flying J at http://flyingj.com/fuel/gasoline_CF.cfm, Diesel Boss at http://dieselboss.com/fuel.htm, Gas Price Watch at http://gaspricewatch.com/new/default_V3.asp and Gas Buddy at http://gasbuddy.com/. Thought For The Day – Even
if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there. Register Now For Our New Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally Wednesday, March 12, 2008 Our time here in We had a lot that we wanted to accomplish while we were here, but between the week I spent recovering from the flu and then the loss of our dear friend Dave Baleria, we have just about run out of time. We still have some family and friends we have not been able to touch base with, but hopefully we can squeeze in a quick visit in the few days we have left. Yesterday Miss Terry and I drove up to Apache
Junction to visit Terry’s parents, Pete and Bess Weber. Whenever we
can, we prefer the two lane roads, and our favorite route from We stopped in
Back in 1891 when the courthouse was built, the job ran over budget, and the County Supervisors decided that $29,000 was enough money to spend, so the faces on the clock were simply painted on, and they have remained the same ever since. I guess time really does stand still. North of Florence we joined with U.S. Highway 60
and took it into Apache Junction. We had a nice visit with Terry’s parents, and then took them out to dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, the Happy China Buffet, where owner Joann greeted us with hugs and treated us royally, as she does all of her customers. By the time our meal was over, I think my father-in-law had found his new favorite restaurant too! Miss Terry took the wheel for the drive home, and
we arrived back at Tra-Tel RV Park in Thought For The Day – History
is a vast early warning system. Register Now For Our New Eastern Gypsy Gathering Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Located in the small community of Vail, about 20
miles east of downtown Being just a bit claustrophobic, I’m not a big fan of caves, but I thought the tour would make a good story for the Gypsy Journal, and Miss Terry seems to enjoy this sort of subterranean scampering around so off we went. This was my third cave tour and compared to Legend has it that back in 1884, four outlaws robbed a train and got away with $72,000 worth of gold and currency. A posse tracked the bandits to the cave’s entrance, and when they were met by gunfire, they decided it would be more prudent to wait them out, figuring that hunger and thirst would eventually cause the bad guys to surrender. What the lawmen didn’t know was that there was
another exit from After serving a long sentence, the surviving outlaw either (depending on who is telling the story) slipped away from lawmen watching him, snuck into Colossal Cave and retrieved the loot the gang had stashed there; or made his way into the cave, only to discover that a series of earthquakes that had occurred while he was in prison that changed the layout of the cave and had buried the loot for all time. How true is this tale of lost treasure? There are several versions of the story, and there is at least some basis in fact. But I never saw a glint of gold during our tour. Thought For The Day – Good intentions are no substitute for action. Register Now For Our New Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally Monday, March 10, 2008 Terry and I love small towns. Sit down for lunch at a small town diner and do a bit of eavesdropping, and by the time your meal is finished, you’ll know who is getting married or divorced, who is cheating on their significant other, who just got a new pickup truck, and who is filing for bankruptcy. On a good day, you’ll also hear who the prime suspect for fatherhood is for the baby the local bad girl is carrying, and who had a visit from the sheriff after their latest drunken family brawl. But it’s not all bad news. You will probably come away knowing who just graduated from Army basic training, what hometown boy is making it in college, and about a dozen acts of kindness that are not so random in small towns.
If you like toads,
you should probably plan to spend some time in Toad Suck, Other small towns
with interesting names we have come across are Boring, Oregon; Cut and Shoot,
Texas; Bumblebee, Thought For The Day – If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons? Register Now For Our New Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally Sunday, March 9, 2008 We had visitors yesterday. We met Dan and Teri Gregg briefly last month when they visited our Gypsy Gathering rally on a day pass. Dan and Teri spend several months at a time traveling in their vintage GMC motorhome, which they are restoring. Like us, Teri is the handyman in the family, and Dan gives her credit for all of the work they have accomplished on their coach. They will be attending a couple of GMC rallies in the next few weeks, and the purpose of their visit was to pick up a bundle of newspapers to pass out at the rallies. It was nice to have the time to get to know this neat couple, and we look forward to seeing them again in our travels. Meanwhile, I am following their adventures on their daily blog at http://www.danandteri.blogspot.com/. After Dan and Teri left, we ran some errands, and while we were out, stopped at a Barnes & Noble bookstore. I was looking for a particular book, and approached a young lady who happened to be the assistant manager. I asked for her assistance in finding the book, but about then another young lady came up and said “Tina just came in with her new boyfriend! Check it out!” Then they both squealed like a couple of teeny-boppers at a Beatles concert and rushed over to check out the boyfriend, leaving me standing there |
Yesterday
we drove up to the ghost town turned tourist trap of Jerome, a few miles
from the Thousand Trails campground. Jerome is reached by way of State
Route 89, a winding mountain road that is not suited for RVs and will
cause some people a moment or two of anxiety if they have a fear of high
places.
to
turn around at a scenic viewpoint. We stopped to take a few photographs,
then drove back to Jerome hoping we’d find a vacant parking space. It
was not to be, and finally we asked ourselves how bad we wanted to park
further out and walk a mile or more up the steep hill into town, just to
look at artsy fartsy things we wouldn’t buy anyway. We decided not
enough, and gave up and returned to 
Janet Hawks, Chief of Parks, apologized for the problem and said that
was not the official policy. When I pointed out to her that signs posted
at the park say restrooms are “free” with a paid admission, she told
me that the park has budget restraints and that maintaining the
restrooms is one of their biggest expenses. She said the parks system
gets very little tax money to operate on.
The
system consists of a monitor measuring about 7 inches wide by 3 inches
high and half an inch thick, and tire monitoring sensors that screw onto our
tire valve stems in place of the standard valve caps. Now instead of
having to check my tire pressures manually with a gauge, I can scroll
through every tire on our bus and van and get an accurate reading right
from the driver’s seat! While on the road, the system will alert us to
low pressure and identify which tire is low, or do the same with high
pressure, helping us identify and deal with problems before they become
catastrophes.
A few years ago we were cruising down Interstate 10
between 
Once everything was installed, Mike and Pat spent a
lot of time with us explaining the system and its operation, and
answering any questions we had. I’ve looked forward to adding the
PressurePro system to our bus for a long time, and we really appreciate
Mike and Pat going to all of the trouble of bringing it to us and
overseeing the installation. For more information on the PressurePro
system, visit Mike’s website at 
As
I told Terry when I called to give him the bad news, it’s not his
fault, or even my fault. But after we had the stainless steel on our bus
polished, we rose to such a higher level on the bus nut scale of
evolution that there was just no going back. Terry has a very beautiful
MCI bus conversion of his own, but let’s face it folks, there are
mirror polished buses and then there are those ‘other” buses. Terry
unfortunately, has one of the latter.
question. My pal Smokey Ridgely 
Soon
a crew was hard at work with buffers, polish, and rags, and we were
amazed how well they were able to cut through the grime. The entire job
took almost four hours, and we are pleased with the results. As the
photo of the bay doors show, the before and after is quite impressive. I
know there are purists out there who will insist that polishing
stainless steel should only be done by hand, because buffers leave swirl
marks in the surface, and yes they do. But it still looks much, much
better than before, and now that we have it cleaned up, we can more
easily try to keep it shined. We always tell people this is our 30-30
bus. From 30 feet away, moving at 30 miles per hour, it looks pretty
good! To us, it was money well spent.
Since
all I would be able to do was get in the way, I just stepped back and
let the experts do their thing, though I did manage to get a photo of
Ron as he was hard at work. I’m not a techno-geek, but Greg tells me
that these new charge controllers will allow us to get the maximum
output from our solar panels for faster and deeper battery charging.
The
weather turned ugly here in 
been in the upper 70s most of last week, but Sunday the high was only
about 52 degrees, and in the afternoon a fast moving hail storm came
through the area! I grabbed my camera and snapped a few quick photos.
Texas
photographer or artist. There is a lot of history here. The Butterfield
Overland Mail stagecoach route passed through 
After
we toured the museum, Terry and I drove to the Amerind Foundation’s
nearby
picnic area, where we explored the rock formations, and I tried to hold
up one huge rock that looked like it wanted to roll off its perch.
either bites, stings, or sticks you. But if you use just a little bit of
common sense, watch where you put your hands and feet, and respect the
plants and critters who live here, you’ll be fine. Just remember,
you're in their back yard, not your own.
Back
at Tra-Tel RV Park, we were treated to a beautiful sunset, and I managed
to get a quick photo.
At
first glance, the clock tower looks pretty run of the mill, as
courthouse clock towers go. But if you watch it for very long, you’ll
soon realize that the hands on all four of the tower’s clock faces
read 11:44 and never move. No, the clock isn’t broken. Actually, there
is no clock!
One good result of the rainy winter 
Terry and I spent some time yesterday wandering
around underground. Even though I lived in 
The names alone
of some small towns make it worth stopping. Have you been to
Intercourse, 
Mexico